


while barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day

by cerie



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Nightmares, Past mentions of rape/noncon, Ramsay is his own warning, Sharing beds, Sworn Shield, comfort in sleep
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2018-09-19
Packaged: 2019-02-12 01:02:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12947931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cerie/pseuds/cerie
Summary: Season 7. Instead of the Eastwatch party heading immediately south after capturing a wight, Jon's fate is left unknown and the survivors come to Winterfell instead. Sansa presses Sandor into her service as a sworn shield under the auspices of Arya and Brienne's departure but her desire to have him there turns out to be a lot more complicated than it would seem.





	1. SANSA I

Sansa is deep within the castle when two soldiers come and tell her that a party from Eastwatch has arrived and is in need of food and shelter. She’s taken over what used to be Vayon Poole’s office to keep track of stores and balance the ledgers and the candles have burned low; how long has she been ensconced in here trying to make something out of nothing? They don’t have enough food to last an entire winter as it is - what is she going to do if she has men to feed and clothe in addition to the garrison that already calls Winterfell home? No matter. She’s going to have to make it work and she supposes she’s going to have to make it work without Petyr Baelish’s help. 

For all his crimes, the man had been miraculous with gold, and Sansa finds herself missing him when she’s buried in ledgers written in a language she can barely parse. She’s no good at numbers and never really has been but she _is_ learning. She’s learning because she has to - everyone is depending upon her to survive. The least she can do is hold up her end of the bargain. 

The soldiers are still standing there, waiting for their instructions, and it’s only when one manages a querulous “Lady?” that she shakes her head clear of her thoughts and waves a hand at one of them. “Yes, absolutely. Show them inside and give them room and board. We’ll need to find out what they were doing at Eastwatch, certainly, but given Bran I think I have something of an idea.”

***

The group of men before her aren’t entirely what she expects to find. First, Jon isn’t among them. He’d been with them, yes, but they’d left him behind when things had gone badly and he’d insisted they go on without him. _Stupid_ , Sansa thinks. _Stupid like Father and Robb._ Still, it’s Jon’s way, and she hopes that the gods have seen fit to spare him. She can’t lose him again, not after she’s lost most of her family in some way or another.

A man named Gendry speaks first, claims that he’d sent ravens to the dragon queen to get her to send aid. There’s some talk about how dragons had come to save them and rent the air with streams of flame but that someone or some _thing_ called the Night’s King had felled one of them. Sansa can hardly parse the idea that dragons are real, much less that one would ride them into battle, but she keeps that to herself. She’s grown very good at keeping things to herself. 

Beric Dondarrion is there too but he’s far from the knight she remembers Jeyne twittering over as a girl. He’s different now, both in carriage and speech, and Sansa wonders what he’s seen other than dragons and Others that has made him that way. She listens to him speak, listens to him say that Jon had fought valiantly against the host that they might make their own escape. Of course he had. Jon is a fool just like Ned Stark, Gods take him, but it’s part of the reason she loves her brother so. 

Tormund is the one she knows best of the men and when he speaks, Sansa cannot help but smile a bit. She’d gotten to know the Wildling while at the Wall with Jon and his fondness for Brienne couldn’t be missed. He speaks plainly about what happened and confirms that they’d come up to trap a wight, one of the dead, to show it to Cersei. It’s a foolhardy plan but she supposes it’s the only way Cersei Lannister might lay down her arms to truce with Jon and the dragon queen. When Tormund finishes, there’s only one man who hasn’t spoken. He’s in the shadows, quiet, and when he speaks his voice is a rasp that sends Sansa hurtling back to the Blackwater and to a song she hadn’t wanted to give and a kiss that had been stolen from her. 

“The lordling cunt died for the rest of us. Least we can do is try to kill these fuckers so they don’t kill us first,” he says. Sansa draws in a sharp breath and when she speaks, her voice is stern. It’s a damned good thing Arya’s still out in the yard because she doesn’t imagine a slight against the King in the North would go unchecked, especially not from this man. 

“That lordling cunt is my brother,” Sansa says coolly. “And in his absence, I am the Lady of this castle. I agree with your sentiment, Lord Clegane, but lets try to leave my brother out of this for the time being. He may yet live. We don’t know what transpired after you fled from Eastwatch - Jon would have fought his best. I believe that.” 

Sandor looks up then, eyes flinty and cold through the tangled mess of his hair. He sneers at her for a moment and his eyes rove over her from head to toe. Sansa straightens a bit, wanting to seem taller and more regal if she can. It’s stupid, to want that, but for some reason she feels a challenge has been issued and she wants to rise to it. It’s what this man does to her, apparently, and she finds it a welcome change from other reactions she’s had to men of late. 

“Still chirping, Little Bird? Makes you a bigger fool than the rest of us if you think he’s not dead under all that ice. Or, worse, the fucker’s going to come back and kill us all with that godsdamned sword of his. Valyrian steel, you know.” Sansa swallows, trying to ignore the lump that’s formed in her throat at the idea of Jon becoming one of the monsters he’s described from beyond the Wall. While she can form strategies for taking on Southron armies, she has no idea how to fight the dead. She has no idea how to keep everyone in this castle safe and protected from the winter itself. She _needs_ Jon here as much as Jon needed her before and hearing someone pronounce him dead fills her with apprehension. He can’t be. 

There’s another in their party, a man called Jorah Mormont, and Sansa recalls House Mormont as a house that has kept faith with the Starks even when that hadn’t been a popular decision. She hears him out and hears him give praise for his dragon queen, along with the hope that she’d possibly rescued Jon and taken him south again instead of flying to Winterfell. A raven will be slow, given the storm that’s brewing outside, but there’s hope. She can send a raven to Jon at Dragonstone and hope and that’s better than anything else she’s been given. 

She turns to one of the castellans and asks him to find rooms for all the men who have come in from Eastwatch and to attend to their needs. For her own part, she needs to think, and thinking comes best in the quiet of the Godswood.

***

When she comes to the Godswood, there’s already footprints in the fresh-fallen snow. They’re light, though, and she’s not surprised to see Arya leaning against the weirwood there with something of a smirk across her face. While she and Arya would never have a perfect relationship, she’s found that time has made understanding her sister quite a lot easier and they get along much better than they did when they were children. Time heals most rifts, truly, and Sansa knows she’d been awful as a girl; Arya has even admitted the occasional flaw.

“I want to go, Sansa,” she says, eyes gleaming. “I want to go fight them. I heard them talking about the White Walkers and the wights and the Night’s King and I want to go. I’m no use here - you know I’m never going to be a lady like you are. I want to go fight with Gendry and the others.” Sansa presses her lips together and shakes her head no. There’s snowflakes stinging her cheeks and she feels something of a headache coming on - it’s not enough that she’s possibly lost Jon to the Others but now she’s going to lose her sister too? Bran’s lost to the Three-Eyed Crow. Sansa has nothing left; she has to scrabble at every bit of family she can find in order to keep them close and it feels as if they’re drifting through her fingers, snowflakes melting against warm skin. 

“Arya, you can’t,” she says. “I need you here. I need you here to help protect me - Brienne and Podrick may be expected to go fight at some point or to treat again with Cersei. I can’t possibly be alone here. I can’t...if I send them south, who is going to be here to protect me? It has to be you.” 

Arya frowns for a moment and then brightens, the smile on her face a little wry. “He’s here, you know. Carried me all across the Riverlands and all he talked about was you. Make him stay. He doesn’t want to go south anyway. Make him stay and let me go. You know he’ll do it if you make it an order.” 

The headache that’s threatening gets that much closer. Sansa knows who Arya means without voicing the name and she has thought about it but _not_ in exchange for her sister going beyond the Wall to get herself killed. She doesn’t want to lose the family she has left and she certainly doesn’t want to lose _Arya_ when they’ve only just now begun to understand one another. 

“I’m just going to go anyway,” Arya continues. “And there’s nothing you can do to stop that. Make him swear to you and stay, let me go and when Jon comes home you’ll be here to welcome him back. There’s got to be a Stark in Winterfell. I’m No One, remember? I’m anyone I need to be and no one at all. You were always going to be the Lady of Winterfell no matter what.” 

Sansa presses her lips together. “Some would argue that I’m no longer a Stark. I’m a Lannister and a Bolton according to Lyanna Mormont. Still, fine. Go if you’re going to go. Just...Arya? Arya, please be careful. I can’t lose you. I love you.” Arya pushes herself off the weirwood and brushes by her, steps as light as a cat. 

“I know, Sansa. I know.” 

Sansa wishes that Arya would have given her the words just this once but she supposes that’s not Arya’s way. Besides, if she’d gotten the words, there’d be a finality to it that Sansa never wants to face. This way, at least, it seems that Arya has to come back if only to taunt her even more with love she’ll never give and promises she won’t keep. Her sister is nothing if not unpredictable, after all, and if there’s anything they need in this war it’s something unpredictable.


	2. SANSA II

The entire party is set to go south in a few days. There’s been no return raven from Dragonstone but, considering the weather, that’s hardly a shock. If Jon is alive and with the so-called dragon queen, they may not have had time yet to return a raven or send a rider north with a message. They may be fending off Cersei or whatever it is that’s going on south of the Neck; Sansa’s had her attention focused on her own kingdom for the moment and not anywhere else. 

She’s come to think of it as hers. Jon is the rightful king, yes, and she’ll be happy to abdicate her power once he returns but for now, as his heir, she has started to take ownership of a thousand little things that her brother simply hadn’t attended to. He’d been more concerned with war against physical opponents than she has been and Sansa’s battle is against the winter itself. She’s deep within the ledgers again when her door swings in and someone steps inside. Thinking it’s the maester, she doesn’t bother looking up. 

“Any ravens today? News of Jon?” she asks, only to be greeted with a harsh, barking laugh in response. Oh. Sansa looks up, startled, and in the process spills hot sealing wax against her right hand. Gods. It hurts, yes, but she’s schooled herself not to react to pain any longer and aside from peeling the wax away when it cools, she has no other reaction. She currently has to deal with the man who’s lurking in her office. 

“No fucking birds, so far as I know. The wolf bitch sent me down here to find you,” he says, brow furrowing a bit. “Said you needed me for something. Told her I wasn’t some fucking knight to be at beck and call but she just bared her teeth and hissed at me to come down here anyway.” Sansa gestures at the chair opposite her desk but Sandor doesn’t move toward it, choosing instead to loom over her from his considerable height. She’s always been a tall woman but Sandor makes her feel positively miniscule. She supposes he makes everyone feel that way. 

“Please don’t refer to my sister as that,” Sansa says. It’s a useless admonishment, likely, but she issues it anyway. Sandor makes a noise somewhere between a grunt and a groan and she continues on. If Arya’s set her up for this, it’s the least she can do to plow forward and cause the both of them a minimum of embarrassment. 

“I find myself in want of a sworn shield. Brienne is set to go south with Podrick three days from now and I have no other among the guard that I trust with my person. Arya desires to go to the Wall. Since the only other person I would trust with guarding me is, well, _you_ , I thought I would offer you the position of being my sworn man. You’d not see any battle on the front lines of this war or any other, you’d have room and board and you’d be given an allowance of gold. I need...I need to be protected as the heir to the King in the North.” 

Sansa also needs someone to slay the phantoms that haunt her at night - Joffrey. Ramsay. Petyr Baelish. Ilyn Payne. Both Arya and Brienne have shared her bed before to try and chase the nightmares away to middling success. She can’t well invite Sandor Clegane to do the same but hopefully his imposing presence will help chase some of the nightmares away simply by being a nightmare in and of itself. 

“Not a fucking knight or a king’s dog, Little Bird.” Sansa holds up a hand, halting his words for a moment. “I’m not asking you to be a knight, Lord Clegane. We don’t believe in the Seven north of the Neck and so no one can knight you. I’m asking you to be a Lady’s Hound, if you will, and I’ll pay you handsomely for it.” 

A tense few moments pass and Sansa is ready to lay out an entire argument about why she needs him here at Winterfell that doesn’t mention her particular troubles with sleeping before she hears him grunt out an assent and something else that she barely catches. He snarls it between snapping teeth and it’s only after he’s left the room that she understands exactly what he’d said. 

_I don’t need your fucking gold. I’ll do it._

Well. She’d been successful then, hadn’t she?

***

It takes most of the next three days to outfit the expedition going south and to move Sandor’s things into the chamber that adjoins with her own. Once, she thinks, that had been the lady’s chambers in this castle. She doesn’t recall her mother ever using chambers separate from her father but she supposes other Lords and Ladies of Winterfell had marriages that were more traditional than her own parents.

The convenience of these chambers is that they adjoin with her own and should something threaten her in the night, Sandor could be quick to address it without having to go around and waste precious moments. Sansa thinks most of her threats have been eliminated now with Baelish gone but if there’s a cat’s paw lurking about to slit the throat of the Lady of Winterfell, she wants to know it can be quickly dealt with and that she doesn’t have to go to bed afraid - at least not for that reason, anyway. 

Sansa has other reasons for being afeared in her bed. Nightmares plague her most nights and while she tries to drink enough wine to soothe her mind into a numbed sleep sometimes she isn’t successful. More than once she’d woken Brienne and Arya up with her screams and the latter had taken to just sleeping in bed with her, slapping at her face to wake her when she was paralyzed with fear. She doesn’t think Sandor Clegane is going to do the same. 

She’s quiet throughout supper and when Arya and the others go to bed to prepare for their journeys come morning, Sansa decides to take her leave of company as well. She’s not nearly drunk enough to get through the night without being afraid but she supposes it’s better that Sandor finds out sooner rather than later just exactly what his duty is going to entail. He’s gone from fighting the dead to fighting phantoms, apparently, and Sansa is apprehensive about letting him see this part of her. 

She readies herself for bed, donning a long cambric nightgown and braiding her hair so it won’t tangle as she thrashes about on the pillow. She lays in bed for a long while, counting forward and backward and going over any manner of dull things in her head in hopes that she can fall asleep without much effort. It’s not effortless, by any stretch, but the effects of wine and boredom eventually lull her to sleep and it’s only after she’s deep under that the nightmares begin. They always, always find her in nightmares. 

It’s Ramsay tonight, forcing her under him and then forcing her under each of his soldiers in turn. Jon’s tied up in the corner, forced to watch as she’s violated over and over again. Sansa doesn’t know which is worse - the pain of rape she already knows or the humiliation of Jon seeing her brought this low, of knowing her home is lost forever because she’s lost this war and knowing that as soon as Ramsay’s had his fun he’ll execute them both. Or, worse, he’ll keep them alive and they’ll end up like Theon, some twisted ghost of what they used to be. She can’t. She just can’t. 

She’s still trapped there, still being tortured by Ramsay when she feels harsh hands on her shoulders and a harsh voice in her ear. It’s not the silken tone of Ramsay Bolton, the soft-spoken way he has that belies how cruel he is. No, this voice is crude and harsh, the accent all wrong because it’s from the Westerlands and not from the North. It’s not Ramsay, it’s not Ramsay, it’s _not_ Ramsay. 

“For fuck’s sake, woman, wake up!” Sansa dimly registers that she’s the woman in question and she blinks awake, eyes panicked as she realizes a large man is looming over her. It’s not a dream, then. She has been captured by someone and they intend to rape or murder her just as she’d dreamed about. The man’s speaking, though, and while his tone is harsh the words aren’t particularly. He has his hands about her shoulders and his fingers are pressing in just hard enough to cause a bit of pain, to remind her this is real and not a dream. Dreams don’t feel tangible like this. 

“I...my Lord Clegane, I’m sorry,” she stammers, struggling to sit up. He releases the grip on her shoulders and stands beside her bed, hands balled into fists alongside him. It’s only now that Sansa realizes that he’s shirtless and barefoot and that he apparently had intended on assaulting her phantom assailant with his bare hands. Well. She supposes he’s certainly big enough for the task. 

“I’m not your fucking lord. I’ve got a name, use it. I thought some fucker had come in here to kill you the way you were screaming. What was that about?” Sansa blinks for a moment and tries to regain some composure. She’s in her nightgown and looks like a fool but she can at least try to be the lady of this castle for the moment. She smooths down the edge of the coverlet and tries to find the right words. 

“I have nightmares. After what happened to me, I have trouble sleeping through the night without fear that I’ll be taken again. That’s all.” 

Sandor watches her for a moment, face still twisted in a vicious scowl. It’s clear she hasn’t prepared him for this and truly it’s not really what a sworn shield ought to do. It’s just that now her enemies tend to be more of the ethereal type and not the physical one. Brienne and Arya had understood that. She doesn’t know that Sandor Clegane can or will. She has to hope that he’ll try. 

“The Bolton cunt, I take it? I don’t know the whole story,” he adds. “I just know that your sister told me that they had the castle and you before you escaped.” He exhales and turns his back to her. Sansa wants to protest, as it seems he’s leaving, but he only drags one of her chairs closer to the bed and sits in it with his legs splayed wide. 

“Since I’m not going to get any fucking sleep with you screaming, why don’t you tell me about it? I can fill in the details if it’s too much for you to chirp about.” Sansa glares at him, eyes wintry cold, and bites her lower lip a bit. Sandor Clegane has seen her beaten, seen her stripped before the court, seen her humiliated in every way except that one. He’d actually saved her from that, once, during the bread riots. 

“I’m not a maiden,” she says darkly. “Ramsay Bolton made certain of that. He beat me and raped me every single day I was in his possession and he flayed me in every place he thought he could get away with it. He never hurt my face. He needed my face to secure his claim. He needed...it could only be him, you see, and no one else but he threatened me with it all the same. He made me walk through the halls of my own home naked and crying because he’d locked me out. If I was bleeding, he’d just have me anyway. He’d have made me bleed so why not take me then too? No matter. I was a thing. A name, a cunt and a claim as so many have liked to say.”

Her hands are shaking a bit now and she pulls the coverlet tight between them to try and hide it. “Petyr Baelish sold me to him. I’ve never been anything but my claim. Now, I have this castle and I have to defend it from the winter and from the dead and I can’t even manage to get a night’s sleep without being paralyzed from fear of a man who is dead. Of men who are dead - they’re all dead, all the ones who have hurt me and frightened me and taken advantage of me. Some by my hand, some by others but they’re all dead now. All of them.” 

Sandor doesn’t say anything for a long while and Sansa wonders why she even told him. What had been the point, really, to tell him this sick and sordid tale when all he was there to do was to protect her from a knife in the back? He’s hardly the most comforting person even when it isn’t the middle of the night and yet...she’d felt compelled to spill all of it to him, to confess it to him in words that ladies don’t use but that she’d learned about firsthand. 

“Just because the fucker’s dead doesn’t mean you stop thinking about it,” he finally says. “You think I don’t think about this shit every day?” he asks, brushing his hair back off the burned side of his face. Sansa looks at his scars intently for a moment, studying them. She hasn’t seen them since the Blackwater and they’re not as horrible as she remembers. Oh, they’re terrible looking, but they don’t seem to bother her nearly as much as they had before. She’s different now. She has her own scars to add to the collection. 

“You need to sleep, Little Bird,” he says, softer now. “You look like you haven’t slept in weeks. Anything ever help to get the fucker out of your mind?” Sansa shakes her head. The only thing that helps has been to have someone stay in the room with her but while that had been easily accomplished with Brienne and Arya, there’s something very wrong about asking Sandor Clegane to stay in her bedchamber. She’s not entirely certain he won’t make things worse, being a man, but at least he’s so physically different from all the men who have ever haunted her that she won’t ever have to worry about mistaking them in the dark. 

“Arya and Brienne used to sleep in the bed,” Sansa says finally. “It helps to have someone else here to remind me that I’m not alone. That’s hardly appropriate, though.” Sandor snorts a little and pushes at her shoulder, forcing her to move toward the center of the bed. Sansa frowns at him, confused, and he curses under his breath. 

“I’m not sleeping on the fucking floor like some knight. Move over and I’ll stay in here. I’ll sneak out before the maid catches us or whatever the fuck you’re worried about. I just know neither of us is going to sleep if you’re screaming and that’s going to wake up a hell of a lot more people than us sleeping together.” 

Sansa moves over a bit more, giving him room, and turns over so her back is facing him. She squirms around for a few moments adjusting her pillow and pulling the coverlet this way and that until he curses at her, sharply, and Sansa ceases her movement entirely. She counts her breaths silently the way she does when she’s trying to fall asleep and before she’s gotten to one hundred, Sandor’s already snoring. Naturally. 

She’s not certain when she falls asleep but when she wakes, the bed is empty and there’s weak winter sunlight streaming through the windows of her chamber. There’s breakfast laid out for her on one of the tables and given she hadn’t been awoken by the gasp of some scandalized maid, she assumes that Sandor had discreetly made his way out of the bed before anyone could notice he’d been in here. Sansa gets out of bed and shrugs into a dressing gown, sitting at the table alone to pick at her breakfast. 

That...hadn’t gone so terrible as it could have.


	3. SANSA III

Sansa works herself well past midnight the next evening and her candles are burned low when she finally snuffs them to head up to her chambers. Her method up until now has been to simply work herself to exhaustion so that she cannot dream but it is only of middling success. The only thing that truly calms her enough to sleep is to share the bed with Brienne or Arya and while she doesn’t mind either of them knowing what she screams out in the middle of the night, she doesn’t want to expose any of her maids to it. 

She lets herself back into the lord’s chambers and undresses. She manages to get down to her shift and woollen stockings when she realizes that the door between her chambers and the adjoining ones is open and she peeks her head around the heavy wooden door, uncertain why it would have been left ajar. A maid? The maids usually came in and out through the main doors as Sansa kept this one locked and the key on her person. She frowns a bit and pushes in to the other room. 

Sandor is holding the key that locks the doors between these two rooms and that makes Sansa frown even deeper. Why does he have it and why has he taken it upon himself to unlock these doors when she leaves them locked until she comes to bed in the evening? What is he getting at? Before she can puzzle out the meaning of it, Sandor curses beneath his breath and jerks his head toward the door. 

“No point in you screaming all night, girl, so I unlocked the doors. If you want me, you can just call for me. If it’s open between this room and that room, you wouldn’t have to say anything if you needed me. If I heard something wrong, I could just come in there and handle it.” It’s quite thoughtful of him, honestly, and Sansa hadn’t anticipated that. Sandor, unlike so many other men she’s known, isn’t the sort to hide his motives. He speaks plainly and his actions are bold - he doesn’t deal in political machinations or mind games. It’s a relief. 

“You’ve possibly thought through this more than I have,” Sansa says. She rubs the bridge of her nose lightly and bids him a good evening. It’s far too late for most people to be awake but she is. She’s always awake, always trying to quiet her mind enough to sleep and then, once she’s successful in that, trying to quiet her mind _during_ sleep. She wages a war against the pillows every night and every night she comes out the loser. Tonight, she hopes, she can come out the victor. 

It’s an auspicious start, at least, but the nightmare plagues her soon enough. Sansa struggles in it and tries to escape, this time running through endless corridors and mazes in the Red Keep. She hasn’t had a dream about King’s Landing in a long while, other horrors more near to her, and she had forgotten just what horrors had been visited upon her there. She has new monsters now. 

She thrashes in the sheets, unable to wake herself fully, and there’s a dip in the mattress and a calloused hand brushing her hair back off her cheeks. Sansa’s eyes fly open in shock and her mouth is in a tiny o, a scream that doesn’t escape her lips. Sandor’s in her bed again and this time instead of looking at her with his normal cruelty or indifference, his face seems somewhat softer in the low firelight. It must simply be because she’s out of her senses. He’s not soft. Part of the reason she wants him here is because he isn’t. 

“There’s nothing here, Little Bird,” he says lowly. His voice is gentler than usual too, his whole manner, and she wonders if this is something he’s ever shown to her outside of privacy. She remembers his soft touch against her wounds when Joffrey would have her whipped, the way he’d drape his cloak over her while one of her maids gave her something warm to drink. It feels like being back in the Red Keep again, in some ways, but different now because Winterfell is her haven. 

“Joffrey,” she manages, voice hoarse. “Chasing me through the Red Keep. Different, this time. It’s usually not Joffrey anymore.” Sandor exhales noisily and shakes his head. His annoyance is rising up again, the mask he puts on to show he doesn’t care about anyone or anything, and Sansa is sad for it. She’d liked the few moments he was softer with her and gentle. She had liked that glimpse into his inner self, the side of him she’s only seen a handful of times. This is the man she dreamed about demanding a kiss from her at the Blackwater. It’s strange to see him again. 

“The little shit is dead now,” Sandor says firmly. “Can’t drive a sword through a ghost, girl. I don’t know what you want me to protect you from but I can’t protect you from your own damn mind.” Sansa’s brows furrow in annoyance but, ultimately, he is right. He can’t plunge a sword or dagger through the phantoms in her mind and while he’s her sworn shield, this is a battle only she can fight. It’s frustrating to her. 

“Does it frustrate you? That it isn’t so simple as cutting down anything that threatens me?” Sandor huffs and doesn’t answer. What he does do, though, is smooth a hand over her hair. It’s coming loose from her braid and tendrils are escaping, a soft red halo around her face and neck. He hooks his fingers into the plait and undoes it, combs her hair out with thick fingers. Strange. 

“It’s not the shit I trained for,” he admits. “You want me to sleep in your bed again?” Sansa pauses for a moment, uncertain. It’s something she’d wanted almost nightly with Arya, seeking out the comfort of her sister’s embrace after the death of Littlefinger and their own reconciliation. Brienne had provided this to her at her request, willing to do anything and everything to protect her lady. Can she ask this of Sandor again? 

She sighs, then nods. She doesn’t want to be plagued by the nightmares any longer and Sandor seems to take that as consent. He pushes her to the side, crawls into the bed beside her. He’s wearing thin linen breeches but no shirt and Sansa has never had a chance to see so much of him before. 

He’s...well. Formidable comes to mind. He looks like a statue of the Warrior or the Smith, thick corded muscles stretched over every inch of his large frame. He has so many scars that Sansa couldn’t begin to enumerate them but she starts committing the details to memory. She’s learned to watch and to glean as much information as she can with her eyes and ears and Sandor’s scars are a written history of his battle prowess. There’s a star-shaped one just over his heart, the tell-tale sign of lance having crushed into him and splintered in some tourney. It hadn’t unseated him, though. She thinks it’s from the Tourney of the Hand. 

“Rude to stare, Little Bird,” he safe, voice low and gruff. Sansa colors and turns on her side, back to him as she’d been before. It seems only right to do it this way, to minimize the appearance that this is anything other than comfort and solace. She needs to keep her distance from him and doesn’t want to let down the walls she’s built up over the years. She’s always been drawn to him, attracted to him in spite of his many deplorable qualities, and with him in such proximity it’s difficult to hide that. She has to take desperate measures. 

“It’s not like you don’t look at me,” she scoffs, braver without having to face him. There’s a heavy pause in the air for a moment and then Sandor barks out a laugh. A laugh, truly? Sansa rolls over to address it further and is greeted with the sight of Sandor laying flat on his back, hand splayed low on her belly. Sansa wishes she could be that hand, if only for a moment, because her curiosity is getting the better of her. The game is getting more and more dangerous by the moment; the game has her dancing on the edge of a knife. 

“Something worth looking at,” he says, nonchalant. Really? That’s all? Sansa is equal parts annoyed and disappointed. Of all the things to say, that’s what he gives her? She’d hoped for something else. She has no idea _why_ , naturally, considering she’s done with men and even if she wasn’t, Sandor Clegane is hardly one to pin hopes upon. He’s a wanted man, his lands and keep are forfeit to the crown in light of his warrant and she’s the Lady of Winterfell. She is done with marriage. Her power comes through her name and she refuses to surrender the name of Stark again. 

“It’s not like you don’t know, girl. Half the men in the Seven Kingdoms want to fuck you.” That has Sansa narrow her eyes at him and the harsh reply she ought to bite back comes out at him full force. She isn’t going to spare him the venom of this; it’s been a long while since she’s been able to lash out at someone and he makes such a convenient target at the moment. 

“Yes, I am aware. I’ve been threatened with rape since I was twelve years old and I have been made to know that men will do any disgusting thing with me they can simply because of my face and my name. I’m quite done with having men describe to me how they’re going to violate me and I would prefer if you wouldn’t bring it to light. I’m tired of it, Sandor. I’m tired of being a target solely because I was born female.” 

He has the decency to look somewhat embarrassed and his words come slowly, thick and clumsy somehow. Good. He ought to be ashamed, considering he knows damned well the nightmares that plague her and why she wants him in her bed at night. Why would he mention such a thing to her, put the phantoms to name? 

“Aye, I want to fuck you too. I’m not a good man, Little Bird, but I’m not going to force someone. You’d think I would, given this face, but it’s not any good if the other person doesn’t want it. At least the whores want the coin. It’s not forced.” He pauses for a moment and speaks again, more deliberate this time. 

“Just because I won’t do it doesn’t mean I don’t want to.” Sansa takes in a sharp breath and lets it out, tries to keep from stiffening in panic again. She brings him here to chase away the nightmares, not ignite them anew. Still, his words ring with truth. While he has always pushed harsh truth on her unsolicited, his admission that he doesn’t like it forced seems to ring true and she feels safer, if only a touch, for it. He’s not chivalrous by any means but at least he seems to have some code of honor. It’s strange to see that in a man who used to be the king’s hound.

“I’ll thank you to keep your hands to yourself, then, while you are in my service. As I said before, I have no interest in men or marriage. I only have interest in keeping myself safe.” A beat, then two. 

“My body is mine alone. I am tired of being forced to share it for political gain. It belongs to me, just as much as a man has possession of his own body and destiny, and while a woman has no rights unmarried I am in the north and in my country, I will be in charge of my own life. I will be an agent of my own self-preservation.” 

Sandor doesn’t say anything for long moments. “Aye, Little Bird. That body belongs to you. No one is going to get to it except through me.” His words are harsh and laced with conviction and it’s the strength of that that helps her will her body to relax, to trust the man alongside her will not press advantage. 

“Thank you, Sandor,” she says softly. “In the future, we should make the arrangement thus. Sleep in my bed at night, shadow me by day. There’s no need to mention this outside my chambers.” 

If it’s mentioned, she’ll dismiss him so quickly that heads will roll. She refuses to expose her greatest weakness.


	4. SANSA IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't abandoned this fic! I've had a pretty rotten year so far in 2018 and unfortunately I haven't had the time or energy to update before now. I hope I can be more regular now and not leave anyone hanging.

A sennight passes and there’s no word of Jon. Sansa thinks she will go mad if she ends up being the Queen in the North and while the lords are wanting to discuss what should be done in the event that Jon _is_ dead, Sansa doesn’t want to think about it. She would rather think him alive and simply having trouble making his way home to Winterfell; Jon has fought the White Walkers before and won. He will do so again.

There is no king more fierce than the White Wolf, she tells her Small Council. He will return to them before a moon’s turn and they’ll all think ill of themselves for trying to give his crown to Sansa Stark. She doesn’t know if it truly assuages their fears but they do seem less inclined to place the Crown of Winter on her brow and Sansa is grateful for it. 

As is her custom, she spends most of the day engaged. If her body is exhausted by nightfall, she’s less likely to dream, and there’s plenty to be done at Winterfell. She inspects their stores and while she’s not pleased with how lean they are, she thinks they’ll hold them through for another four years of winter. It’s going to be a severe winter, yes, but they will persevere. Winter has always been an enemy they know. She goes to the blacksmith and sees that he’s hammering mail shirts, reforging blades - she asks if he’s added leather and fur to wear beneath the mail and he nods; her suggestions have not fallen on deaf ears. She may be a lady, yes, but she is _their_ lady and they heed her advice. 

After her midday meal, she goes down to the yards. The garrison is almost always engaged in training exercises with the smallfolk, teaching them to wield not only swords and daggers but also their own pitchforks and smiths’ hammers to fight off the dead. Sansa had ordered ever man and woman trained at arms, should they desire, and she’s glad to see that the armies of Winterfell have listened. She watches them all with a careful eye and sees who is best at arms and who is merely learning out of survival; she makes note to promote some and to offer positions in the garrison to others. 

There’s one warrior, though, that always catches her eye. Sandor Clegane is nearly a head taller than most men and while there are three of her garrison coming at him, he’s holding them all off easily with his broadsword. His breath comes in puffs of bright steam against the grey day and there are snowflakes melting in his hair as he whirls around. He puts two of his opponents down and focuses on the third, a man who is slight and prefers fighting with his shepherd’s crook instead of a longsword. Sansa thinks there’s no way this man could stand a chance against the King’s Dog but he does, finally yielding when it looks as if Sandor might split his skull in two. 

“What is your name?” Sansa calls out, impressed with his determination. The man looks back at her and his face pales a bit. She can see the apple of his throat bobbing as his thin, reedy voice gives his name. 

“Harald, m’lady. I didn’t mean harm.” Sansa lifts a hand to wave away that concern and draws closer, eyes alight with curiosity. She’s never seen someone wield a crook the way Harald had and it’s clear he’s had some training in fighting that he hasn’t learned in the yards at Winterfell. She’s keen to know what it is and, if possible, to get him to share it with the other smallfolk who have come to the keep for protection. 

“No need for that. I simply didn’t know how a shepherd learned to use a crook that way.” Harald laughs a bit and when Sansa smiles at him, he blushes. There’s two bright spots against his fair cheeks and as pleased as he looks, Sandor looks all the more angry. Curious, perhaps, but maybe he hadn’t liked being bested by someone who’d never been in a war. 

“Me and my brothers used to fight one another when we had the sheep out,” he says. “I come from the Vale, m’lady Sansa, and I was part of Lord Royce’s garrison before I came here. I just still like my sheep and my crook better than using a sword or a shield.” The Valeman seems to have relaxed a bit while telling her how he’d come across his skills and Sansa gives him a quick nod, showing her approval. 

“I would like you to teach the smallfolk from Winter Town, if you would? They aren’t comfortable with the weapons we can give them but they might be more comfortable using the tools they’re accustomed to. I would see everyone safe throughout the winter and not reliant solely upon our armies. I would reward you with room and board, same as any of my men.” It doesn’t take Harald long to agree and Sansa sends him off to talk to her Master-at-Arms. It’s only after Harald’s gone that she looks at Sandor. 

“That was impressive,” she says. He scowls, deep, and the snow seems to lay heavy in his dark hair. Sansa’s grown immune to snowfall and, honestly, welcomes the sting of it against her cheeks, but she does like the way she can see the snow against his dark hair and brown skin. It’s such a contrast in colors and she wonders, not for the first time, if she might sew him into one of her tapestries. He’d be an impressive subject if a unwilling model. 

“I’d have had him. I don’t fight to kill when it’s not a war,” Sandor says. “We need all the men we can get to fight this one, Little Queen. I’m not going to go killing one just to do it.” Sansa sighs a bit and shakes her head. It’s not going to do if he starts calling her a queen when she’s determined that her brother yet lives. If he does it, the other lords of the North and Vale might get it in their heads to go ahead and crown her. 

“Not a queen. Just a lady,” she says gently. “Come, walk with me. I’ve finished inspecting for the day but I have to do ledgers and send ravens. It’s tedious work and it tends to go faster when I have company.” Sandor’s face, already half-twisted into a scowl, contorts itself into something that speaks of confusion and surprise. 

“No fucking lady in waiting,” he says, eyes flashing dark with anger. Sansa doesn’t care if he’s angry or not. He’s her sworn shield, for better or worse, and she’s asked for him to attend her. If he truly doesn’t want to, she cannot make him, but she thinks she ought not have to ask. It should simply be automatic, the way Brienne and Arya followed her from room to room like her own shades. 

“You can leave if you wish but as you are in my service, I had hoped you’d attend me.” Sansa says it mildly enough but the back end drips with steel. She isn’t the little girl she used to be and she’s not afraid of him. Perhaps if he can get used to the fact that his bark isn’t going to warn her off him, he’ll settle down and not get his hackles raised at every turn. It seems to have some effect because while Sandor is still frowning, he stiffly offers his assent to her request. 

Most guards Sansa has seen or had tend to follow behind a ways. Brienne and Arya had never heeded such, being more confidantes than anything else, and Sandor doesn’t seem to heed it because he’s _Sandor_ and the rules of propriety seem to be meaningless where he’s concerned. He actually manages to get ahead of her a few times as they wind down the corridors into Sansa’s office and she finds herself taking long strides to keep pace. 

Once in her office, Sansa settles in a chair behind the desk and starts to look at the ledgers. It’s times like these that she wishes Tyrion Lannister were _not_ at Dragonstone and was, instead, at Winterfell to help her with this. Tyrion had been clever with sums and had been Master of Coin for the entire realm. She thinks he could make heads or tails of this ledger much quicker than she will and he’d be better company than Sandor besides. 

Sandor, for his part, is merely quiet. When Sansa looks up from the scratching of her quill against the parchment of the book, he’s pointedly looking away from her, and she swears she hears him mutter under his breath about chirping birds. After she’s satisfied that she’s balanced everything correctly (and checked it three times, no less), she addresses him. 

“Do you write, Sandor?” Sandor lets out a sharp noise and shakes his head. “Can sign my name. I can read and write some but I’m no bleeding maester or septon. You don’t need to know how to read and write to kill a man and killing’s the thing most people want me around for.” He has a point, of course, but Sansa had hoped he’d be more adept so she could split this work. She’s sending ravens to each of her bannermen to demand more tribute to Winterfell, more leather to make into armor and more grain to feed them all. It’s tedious and tiresome, especially when everyone’s stores are stretched thin and nobody seems to have more to give. 

“I thought perhaps I would ask your help in writing these ravenscrolls, is all. Have you ever thought to learn more than just the basics? It can be helpful in ways other than the obvious.” Sansa has never loved to read, herself, but knowledge means power and she cannot imagine being unable to read correspondence that passes over her desk and having to trust someone to read it to her. Can Sandor puzzle it out himself or does he simply act like anything written to him doesn’t matter? 

“Been too busy following lordlings around to learn how to write more than a few sentences. Learned some when I was with those fucking septons, though. They used to have me read _The Seven-Pointed Star_ with them.” Sansa hasn’t ever considered Sandor to be religious, horse called Stranger besides, and she cannot imagine him sitting around with septons and reading a prayerbook. My, how things have changed.

“Well, should you ever desire to learn more, I would be happy to teach you.” Sansa dashes off a pile of letters, each the same as the last and all in her fair, fine hand and once she’s done, she writes one more thing on a slip of paper and rolls it up, tossing it at Sandor. “Tell me, can you read that?”

> _Sandor Clegane, Lady’s Hound and Sword of the North._

Sandor looks at it and a cloud passes over his already-stormy countenance before he tosses the slip of paper right back at her. His throw misses her by at least a league, though, and it bounces against the stone wall of the chamber before rolling down to the floor and beneath her desk.

“I’m not a knight. Don’t fucking write that to anyone where they can see it.” Sansa smirks a bit and shakes her head. For someone so damnably loyal, he’s also damnably stubborn. 

“At least I know where to start teaching you,” she retorts back. She’s in a decent mood, at least, and with most of the afternoon’s work done she thinks she can justify taking a quiet supper and trying to sleep. She doesn’t know how successful she’ll be, considering her nightmares, but she wonders if it’s not worth trying to _pretend_ she isn’t afraid of her bed for one night. Tomorrow, she may want to slay it again, but tonight she wants to see if she can find respite there. 

“I’m taking my meal in my solar tonight. I’d like if you joined me.” She phrases it as a request and hopes he’ll accept. She could give the order, of course, but things are sweeter when they’re asked for and received on their own merit. Sandor merely grunts in response and Sansa pushes herself up from the desk, calling in a servant and advising him to get the evening meal prepared for she and Sandor and to bring it to her private solar. She expresses her regret she won’t be dining in the great hall but promises to do so tomorrow night. 

“Why are you like that? You talk to all of them like they matter.” It’s a harsh question but Sandor’s tone itself isn’t particularly harsh and Sansa doesn’t feel if she’s been pushed back onto her heels and expected to respond with more venom like she so often does when Sandor pushes her buttons. 

“They do matter. Every living soul in this castle is someone who hasn’t been taken by the Others. You’ve seen them, Sandor, but I have not. My days are haunted by ghosts and shades and I suspect if I had an image of them in my mind, I would never be able to carry on. I don’t know how you do.” 

Sandor huffs quietly and they’re silent as they make their way back to her solar. It’s a pretty little room, all done up in pillows and lace. Still, the furniture itself is solid and made of thick, black Ironwood. It’s Northern underneath all her finery and Sansa thinks the room (or hopes it is) a reflection of herself. 

They’re barely seated before a servant comes with the food and it’s far too lavish for the rationing they should be doing. There’s a roast capon on a bed of tender greens and it’s been glazed with a honey saffron sauce. There’s mulled wine and mead there in flagons and while Sansa knows that neither are to Sandor’s tastes (she seems to recall Dornish sour for him), hopefully he’ll find something pleasing. There’s also fresh bread, the black bread they make in the North, and Sansa reaches for it so that she can pop it into her mouth while it’s still warm from the oven. 

“This is far too generous. My meals should be smaller from now on,” she tells the servant gently. She doesn’t know if the kitchens will heed her, as they love their lady, but if the North needs to tighten its belt for winter, Sansa will be first among them. She’s barely seen the servant leave before Sandor is tearing into the capon and snatching a leg of it for himself. 

“I need more to eat than a bird,” he says gruffly. Ah. Well. Perhaps she should simply invite him to take meals with her more often, then, and he can eat his fill while she eats just enough to get by. While she is willing to go without, Sansa is less willing to let any of the people under her care to do the same. That includes Sandor. 

“Eat as much as you’d like. I’ll never eat my half of this,” she says. They eat in silence for a few moments and while Sansa is dainty with her table manners, Sandor is not, and it isn’t really a quiet affair. She hears him chewing and swallowing and is painfully reminded that he is quite rough around the edges; memory seems to have softened his harsher aspects and now she’s having to reconcile it. 

“You continue to find our arrangement satisfactory?” Sandor looks up, the leg of the capon half to his lips, and puts it back down in favor of taking a large pull from the flagon of mead. Once he’s drunk his fill for the moment, he addresses her and while his tone is harsh as ever (it has always reminded Sansa of the barking of dogs), his words don’t seem to match up with it. If anything, he seems concerned about her plight.

“Don’t mind sleeping next to you at night but I’m tired of being attacked by your knee in my balls when I try to wake you up.” Sansa colors a bit and finds her plate very interesting for a half a moment. It has a little pattern of winter roses along the edge. 

“I am aware I thrash a bit in my sleep. I hope that if you keep staying with me, the nightmares will abate and I won’t need to be awakened. Thank you for your patience.” Sandor snatches up the flagon of mead again and drains it. When he puts it back on the table it’s with such force that it rocks a bit and Sansa is afraid it may tip over and shatter onto the stone floor. Mead, at least, will be easier to clean out of her expensive Myrish carpet than red.

“You don’t have to be so fucking polite. Anyone who’s been treated like you would be haunted by it at night. We just don’t all sing shrill little songs about it. Most of us just deal with it and move on.” 

It incenses her for reasons she cannot understand and Sansa huffs, pushing her plate away from herself with some force. She had asked him to help her and preserve her secret. He does so, yes, but he does not give her the comfort she wishes she could have. Even Arya, wild Arya, had found it in herself to be sympathetic to her plight and soothe Sansa when she was trapped in the dreams. Sandor does a good enough job of waking her up, when needed, but he doesn’t seem to be happy to have the duty. 

“I have difficulty doing so,” she says stiffly. Surely he’d known what he was getting into that first night and would have asked to be released then instead of now. He’d almost been kind to her in this past week and Sansa wonders if it’s all just been an act. It could be, possibly, but Sandor Clegane isn’t a man who strikes her as a capable liar or skilled in dissembling himself. He’s not like her. “Would you wish to be released from my service, then?” 

Sansa stares at him for what feels like an eternity and if her gaze is unnerving to him, he gives no indication of it. Instead he meets her eyes with his own and shakes his head firmly - once, twice - this is no accident. 

“No one else is going to warm that bed of yours, Little Queen, and if they want to they can crawl over my body after the Stranger’s taken it and try.” Sandor’s hand is balled into a fist and the veins in his temple are prominent.

It’s dark, the way he speaks, and the heat behind it gives her a tendril of desire. She’s never felt that way before, never truly _wanted_ , and she wonders if sharing her bed with Sandor Clegane is going to end up being more of a curse than a blessing. “Hopefully the Stranger is far from here. And, remember, I’m not a queen.” Not yet, anyway. Sansa pushes that traitorous thought aside.

Winterfell needs to be awaiting the return of King Jon Snow, the White Wolf, and not preparing for the reign of the Winter Queen.


End file.
